Zoning change may bode well for chickens

An 184-page code document including recoommendations on chickens will be reviewed at the Nov. 18 meeting

WEST CHESTER TWP. – A change in this township’s zoning code might allow Danielle Richardson to keep her eight chickens in her Fence Row backyard.

Trustees will discuss changes to the code proposed by an 11-member committee at their Nov. 18 meeting that could allow Richardson to legally keep the family pets.

She has not been forced to remove the fowl despite being cited in April for violating the zoning code. Knowing that a committee was working on changes to the code, trustees put enforcement on hold.

The issue has its proponents and opponents – including trustees.

Trustee Lee Wong is in favor of keeping the code the way it is: not allowing chickens on property fewer than three acres.

“I don’t think it’s a good place for them,” Wong said.

Fellow trustee Mark Welch is in favor of changing the code, provided the animals don’t become a nuisance to neighbors, citing the growing trend of sustainability, other communities that allow them, and his own research.

“It’s (sustainability) a national trend,” Welch said. “We can either be prepared or let it happen.”

Welch said there would have to be regulations so that the chickens were limited in numbers, were kept in coops, weren’t a menace and kept in a manner that they didn’t produce foul odors.

“I agree with both,” said George Lang, the board’s president. “Regulations can make this a win-win.”

Supporting Richardson in her quest to have the regulations changed is township resident Benjamin Hale, who is in favor of protecting individual’s rights and liberties.

He likened the animals to other more common pets. But unlike dogs or cats, egg-laying chickens can provide a sustaining food source.

“As we have the right to have a dog in our house and on our property, it is only reasonable to also have the right to have chickens,” Hale said.

“If they become a public nuisance, we already have legislation for the circumstance – just as for barking dogs, noisy neighbors, and other public nuisances that occur when people live in a close community.”

The committee studying the entire code has submitted a 184-page document – including recommendations on chickens – that will also be reviewed at the Nov. 18 meeting.

It includes a new section on in-law suites and daycare homes, revises sign rules in various business districts, talks about outdoor dining areas, and proposes limiting the storage of recreational vehicles in rear yards only.

After reviewing the document – which has been in the works for nearly two years – trustees will discuss their own additions before formally initiating the process to change the code.

That process would include review by the county planning commission, township zoning groups and public hearings.